feet on the air. [ closed ]

[rediant]

WHO Harrison (rediant), Zach (sablutage).
WHAT Bar-side musings from the wrong side of the bar.
WHEN 20XX.
WHERE [Bar name], California.

It was mid-afternoon, and Harrison was at the bar. Thankfully not in an it's-five-o'clock-somewhere sense, but actually behind the bar and practicing his drink mixing. While he tried out different combinations and moved on from one alcoholic base to another, his webbing flew about from his palms, his shoulders, anywhere that was convenient in order to move, replace and retrieve the drinks and cups necessary for his little experiments. Their beloved little hole in the wall was never open early enough for anyone to be dropping by to witness it, which meant Harrison was safe to be as ridiculous as he wanted.

Then again... they would be opening soon. They'd owned the place for a couple of years now, Harrison and Zach, and that was how it always was. Their schedule wasn't ever set in stone, but it sure was easy to set a clock by when they had to keep relatively regular hours for the people who wished to frequent their establishment. Even on nights that the brothers weren't there to hold the fort, their employees kept the hours instead.

Without pause or any sort of preamble, Harrison asked, "Do you think we should open earlier?" It would be something different, certainly, and give them a chance to branch out and add something more to their reputation than being the awesome joint with just the right atmosphere and great staff.

Comments

[sablutage]

Not surprisingly, Zach is sitting on the other side of the bar while Harrison practices his drink mixing. He's got a ledger in front of him and he's writing down last night's take into it, not even looking up when his brother started to speak.

"If we want to expand to food, we'd have to get a kitchen built and supplied before we could do it," he said easily, not even having to think about what Harrison was getting at by the question. Looking up from the ledger, he glanced over at his brother and studied the drink he was mixing. "We'd definitely get more income if we went that way. Finally thinking about expanding the business?"

[rediant]

"We've got a kitchen upstairs," Harrison said absently while he concentrated on how much alcohol was going in without breaking the rate at which it guzzled out. He pulled it back with his hand and a tendril at the mouth to keep it balanced before he looked up and suddenly gave a wide grin. "Wait, seriously?

"I know we talked about it when we made the place and all that, but yeah, I figure... Why not? It's working out. Getting stale." He switched bottles and grabbed a garnish to drop in while layering the soda over it. His hands weren't quite a flurry, but there was energy to his movements and even his patience had the edge of intent behind it. "We'd learn how to cook, teach some kids, get something new going on," he listed, pulling the words out just long enough without getting into sing-song.

Drink finished, he picked it up around the unadorned lip and set it beside the ledger. For all of their advantages in life, they could still get drunk and overindulging was frowned upon, but there was nothing wrong with being a taste-tester. Of course, if Harrison wanted to retain anything he was going to learn from all this, he couldn't start getting tipsy. Thus: Zach was today's guinea pig.

[sablutage]

"A restaurant kitchen," Zach answered immediately. He really must be concentrating if he's making that mistake and not noticing it. "Yes, seriously. We've been doing this long enough that we can change things around enough, but are you ready for the extra work?"

He was thoughtful for a moment while he processed the potential of the idea. Sure, it'd be something new to do, but there was definitely a lot more ways to fail with the addition of the food side of things. Zach paid attention to these things and knew how easy it was to crash and burn by becoming a restaurant as well. "We'll need to start small and work up to it. Adding food is also going to add more headaches."

At first, he didn't reach for the drink. Instead, he made a clone to pick up the drink and take a sip instead. He didn't plan on getting tipsy just yet and his clone could deal with that until it was put away. "You used too much alcohol again. It's overpowering everything else," his clone said bluntly. So it was the brutal honesty one. That'd be helpful for this conversation.

[rediant]

Brutal honesty could be useful. None of the clones really seemed to mind how Harrison treated them as mere extensions of his brother rather than entirely separate beings (aside from the ones who were nothing but sensitive to everything), and so Harrison simply took care of the critique without personally acknowledging it. Tendrils picked up the soda again and tipped it over into the drink still held by the clone; when more had been added, the bottle was set down and they gripped at the garnish to stir it all in, then cupped the bottom of the glass to tip it upward in invitation to try again.

"Of course I am," Harrison said with hands stretched out and imploring. "We've just got to hire out for the times that I'm not. We've dealt with worse headaches than expanding an enterprise before... Think we could build the kitchen ourselves? I can already picture how we'd lay it out and everything."

To say that Harrison was capable of doing all that he planned and more would not be an understatement. However, his attention span was abysmally small at times as more ideas or different focuses shifted into place. All of his ability to remain on a single topic was reserved for the very serious situations of which they hadn't run into for quite a while, which left Zach with being the one to rein him in or let Harrison go and fill in the gaps where necessary. No hard feelings, else they probably would have broken up their small part of the band ages ago. One started it, and the other finished it.

[sablutage]

The clones were all aware that they were merely an extension of Zach and nothing more, so they had no reason to be upset about Harrison's treatment of them, excluding the emotional ones who reacted badly to nearly everything. In fact, they outright preferred the treatment. It was a good reminder for them to keep in mind that they were merely full extensions of Zach and nothing more.

Watching Harrison pour, the clone frowned slightly. "Always make sure there's at least double the main nonalcoholic portion of the drink compared to the alcohol. It takes most of that kick out," he said with the knowledge of someone who knew a thing or two about cocktails. Zach had been reading up and practicing in his spare time.

"I like to make sure before you get started on a project. I'm a little old fashioned like that," he replied with a grin. "Once we get the tools and supplies we need, I don't see why. This wouldn't be the first time we've built something."

They balanced each other out well, so it made it easier for them, and by extension the rest of their group, to work together without much issue. Zach could make sure to finish Harrison's work without a problem and didn't mind at all, especially since he's been doing this for most of their lives. This was just yet another thing to do and Harrison was right, things needed to change. Doing the same thing for a long period of time was boring and mixing it up was always good.

[rediant]

Harrison spared the clone a glance. "Are you sure you're Speak No Evil?" he asked. "I thought you were, but maybe you're Captain Obvious instead. Give me that." That said, the drink was taken away and poured down the sink, another cup retrieved and different ingredients sorted out while he tried something different this time. Screwdrivers and cocktails weren't Harrison's specialty, but he had been bartending for a while and that was why he was practicing to expand his repertoire.

"Nor will it be the last," Harrison agreed. His attention was no longer on the clone, as if it never had been, and he leaned his hands on the bar while his second set of limbs did the work. That was something he didn't need any practice in; they were just about as precise as his hands and possessed the quicker reflexes to make up for the dexterity. "What are we going to need? Can we reuse any of the stuff from when we fixed this place up? Supplier, figure out menus, look for hires..."

He began to mumble a bit while he considered it. There was no way he would end up finishing all the preparation, but that wasn't to say Harrison had no idea what all was going to end up needing to be done. They just had to be clear on new duties they were taking on, plus where their responsibilities would shift when the wind blew another direction.